


Medicine

by MirrorMystic



Series: The Kawakemi Korner [3]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Depression, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Mental Health Issues, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 08:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13543365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Sadayo takes a mental health day.





	Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> A follow-up to "Come a Little Closer". I hope you all enjoy the read.

~*~  
  
Love won’t cure your depression.  
  
She heard that all the time. Her parents told her. Her sister told her. Even Tae told her, usually right before reminding her that she wasn’t that kind of doctor.  
  
On the bad days, like today, Sadayo believed it. Today, laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, with her arms and legs feeling like they were made of lead? Sadayo would need a lot more than chocolates and a kiss on the cheek to get her on her feet. She’d need a miracle.  
  
She didn’t have a miracle. But she had Tae.  
  
“Mornin’, sunshine,” Tae drawled, leaning on the doorframe. “Time for your medicine.”  
  
Sadayo groaned and rolled over, pulling her blanket over her head. Tae rolled her eyes and pulled the covers down.  
  
“What are you, twelve?” Tae muttered, though her smirk vanished when she saw the bags under Sadayo’s eyes. She sat on the edge of the bed, brushing Sadayo’s hair out of her face.  
  
“Hey,” Tae said, urgent, attentive. “Are you alright?”  
  
Sadayo murmured a non-response. Tae frowned, and stepped out. She returned a moment later with a glass of water and a seven-day pill planner.  
  
“It’s bad today,” Sadayo muttered weakly.  
  
“Take your meds,” Tae urged.  
  
“What’s the point?” Sadayo sighed. “They don’t do anything.”  
  
“They don’t work _overnight_ , hon,” Tae chided. “Come on. You’re barely a month into this prescription, and it won’t work unless you stay consistent.”  
  
Sadayo made a face, but swallowed her pills without further complaint. She sat up, and stretched, her spine popping like a string of firecrackers. She groaned, beset by a dozen aches and pains.  
  
“Give me your phone,” Tae said. “I’ll call the school, tell them you’re taking a sick day.”  
  
Sadayo looked up sharply. “What? Oh, Tae, no, I can’t use any more sick days… and I’m not even- I mean- this doesn’t even _count_ -”  
  
“ _It. Counts._ ” Tae said, snatching Sadayo’s phone off of her nightstand. “And if anybody gives you shit for it, I’ll write you a doctor’s note myself.”  
  
Sadayo’s protests died in her throat. She watched, slouching, as Tae flicked through her contacts and called Shujin on her behalf. Tae didn’t even need to ask for her lock code- she already knew it by heart. Sadayo wondered what that said about her. About them.  
  
“Done,” Tae said, tossing Sadayo’s phone onto her lap.  
  
“...Thanks,” Sadayo said softly. She looked up, and met Tae’s eyes.  
  
Tae smiled. “...Yeah. Listen, I gotta go to work. If you need anything, just call, alright?”  
  
Sadayo nodded. “I’ll be fine.”  
  
Tae waved, and stepped out. Sadayo heard Tae’s key click the door shut, and she flopped back in bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling for all the world like she could just die.  
  
But she couldn’t think like that. She’d be fine.  
  
She’d be fine, right?  
  
~*~  
  
She was not fine.  
  
Admittedly, it looked good for awhile there. Sadayo managed to drag herself out of bed without sleeping all day, so that was already better than nothing. She pulled open her curtains, so she wasn’t just lying in the dark, alone with her own misfiring mind. She even managed to make herself some breakfast- it was just instant cup ramen, but credit for trying.  
  
Unfortunately, that was when she saw the binder full of schoolwork she’d left on the dining table last night, and the weight of how much she had to do just crunched down on her chest.  
  
Deep down, she was making a list. She had tests to grade, lesson plans to submit. She had to go to the bank. She should probably clean up around the house.  
  
All these things to do swirled around beneath the surface of her thoughts, unable to pierce the fog. She had so much to do, and she didn’t want to do a damn thing. Sadayo slumped into her chair and ate her convenience store instant ramen, her head buzzing, her limbs like lead, shooting acid looks at the stack of papers sitting on the table beside her.  
  
She sat there, in the dark, watching shadows flicker across the tabletop. Idly, she picked up her phone and tapped open an app. She sat there, chin in one hand, phone in the other, and let the minutes tick by, lost in the fog.  
  
It was so easy to get lost in the simple tedium of video games, even a simple match-three Bejeweled clone she got for free on the app store. There was a straightforward gratification to video games- the promise of equal reward for equal effort. Things weren’t so easy in the real world. Especially not on days like today, when it was a struggle just to sit up straight.  
  
Sadayo’s phone buzzed in her hands. New text.  
  
**_Tae_ ** _: Please tell me you’re not just going to play Candy Crush all day._  
  
Sadayo made a face. Tae knew her well. Arguably too well.  
  
**_Sadayo_ ** _: I wasn’t._ __  
**_Tae_ ** _: How are you feeling?_ __  
__  
Sadayo glanced at the papers beside her and felt a stone sink in her chest. She groaned, trailing her fingers through her hair.  
  
**_Sadayo_ ** _: Whoever decided that lesson plans and grades for this semester would be due on the same day is a real asshole. I don’t even know where to begin._ __  
**_Tae_ ** _: Try putting some music on._  
  
There was an idea. Surely some music would lift Sadayo’s mood. She opened up her music app, and started scrolling.  
  
Immediately, she regretted this decision. The walls of music tracks flew by, and she found herself paralyzed with the breadth of choice available to her. There was so much she wanted to listen to, she didn’t want to listen to anything.  
  
Sadayo knew, deep down, that this was her brain not cooperating with her. She understood that, rationally, but in practice, it was no less frustrating. She huffed an irritated sigh and tapped a radio app instead. She caught them mid-song.

 _I know I’m not the center of the universe,_  
_But you keep spinning ‘round me just the same_  
_And I drive myself crazy_  
_Thinking everything’s about me_  
  
_Holding on…_  
_Why is everything so heavy?_  
_Holding on_  
_So much more than I can carry…_

Her breath caught in her chest. In an instant, she was sixteen again, before she knew that her feelings had a name.

 _I keep dragging around what’s bringing me down_  
_If I just let go, I’d be set free_  
  
_Holding on…_  
_Why is everything so heavy?_  
_Why is everything so heavy…_

Sadayo let out a shuddering sigh, pressing her lips into a line. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was an adult, and adults don’t cry just listening to the radio. Still, it was almost a relief when the song faded out and the DJ came back on.  
  
“‘Commercial-free’ my ass,” Sadayo said, out loud, just to break the loneliness for a moment. She smiled at her own joke. Then her smile turned heavy, and her eyes grew wet.  
  
Sadayo sniffled, before forcing the tidal wave of melancholy back down. She took out her favorite grading pen- purple, since apparently red was ‘too aggressive’- lifted up her phone, and forced a smile for the camera.  
  
_Sadayo sent a picture._ __  
**_Sadayo_ ** _: these papers better watch the fuck out_ __  
**_Tae_ ** _: Get ‘em, girl. :)_ __  
  
Sadayo smiled, this one more genuine. A quick glance at the stack of papers beside her was enough to make her smile falter.  
  
She groaned, pulling out her answer key and getting to work.  
  
Of all things, a smiley-face and a text from Tae were enough to push Sadayo into grading. For a moment, the world became the rhythmic beats of Nujabes and the scratch of her pen against the page.  
  
It didn’t last. Sadayo blew out a sigh, glancing at her pile of completed papers and the sheaf still waiting to be graded. The piles didn’t look that different, all told. But in her head, the task loomed like a mountain in front of her, unassailable, insurmountable, hopeless.  
  
Sadayo slapped her hands down on the table and pushed herself to her feet.  
  
“...I think I’ll take a shower,” she said, to herself, just to break the maddening quiet.  
  
Every introvert has their sanctuary. And few places are more sacred than the bathroom. How many times has this bathroom saved Sadayo from a party that was too loud, too stifling?  
  
...None, admittedly. But then, Sadayo didn’t really throw any parties.  
  
Before Sadayo was diagnosed, she had a strange dislike of showers. They reminded her of rain, and rain was depressing. In hindsight, it could have been that the combination of being depressed and being a hormonal teenager meant that her hygiene was an issue, and she just didn’t like being told she needed to bathe.  
  
Having to shower, and having to get out of the shower- nobody liked either of those things. But once you were _in_ the shower, that was the magical part.  
  
On her worst days, depression felt like staring into an abyss. It felt like she was standing on a cliff at the edge of the world, gazing out at a starless sky, feeling the end of everything crashing towards like a tidal wave. But being in the shower, feeling the water in her hair and on her skin… it was like feeling the rain. A gentle, welcome distraction from the monstrous prospect of oblivion.  
  
Until, like all good things, it ends, and she has to step back out into the real world.  
  
Sadayo steps into her room, fluffing her hair with her towel. She digs through her closet, her dresser, a frown crossing her lips. A worrying percentage of her clothes were just haphazardly strewn about her bedroom. Sadayo wishes it was for sexy reasons, rather than simple malaise.  
  
Sadayo slipped into her last pair of clean underwear and flopped onto her bed with a sigh. Add laundry to her list of things to do. God. The chores were piling up. How could she have possibly gone to work today, only to have all this waiting for her? There was so much to take care of, and she could barely take care of herself.  
  
Sadayo stared at the ceiling, her body aching, her heart aching, her limbs feeling so heavy she might as well have been chained to the bed.  
  
Above her, the ceiling morphed into the abyss. She stood on the cliff, and gazed out at the vast nothing. When would it end? Push back today, and it will come back tomorrow. She saw her whole life stretching out before her, fighting feebly against the starless night. She felt the weight pressing down, until she finally couldn’t take it. There would be nothing. She would be nothing…  
  
Her phone buzzed in her hand.  
  
**_Sadayo_ ** _: Tae_ __  
**_Tae_ ** _: ?_ __  
  
She blinked. She didn’t even remember texting Tae. But, now that she was here…  
  
_I need you_ , Sadayo typed. She stared at the screen, the LCD shining like a star in the abyss. Her thumb hovered over the ‘Send’ key. She took a shuddering breath.  
  
Sadayo bit her lip, and flung her phone aside. It slid across her sheets and thumped onto the carpet.  
  
~*~  
  
She wasn’t alone.  
  
That thought flickered like lightning across the insides of her eyelids, and Sadayo woke with a start. An enticing aroma was drifting in from the kitchen- and with it, voices.  
  
Sadayo got up. She grabbed the nearest shirt she could find, inspected it with a sniff, and pulled it over her head. She opened her door, and peeked out into the apartment.  
  
“Alright, how does this look?” Tae asked. She was standing at the kitchenette, stirring a pot on the stove with one hand, holding her phone and video-chatting with the other. She angled her phone camera towards the pot.  
  
_“Color still looks off,”_ came a gruff voice on the other line. _“Did you put in the cocoa powder?”_  
  
“Listen, Gramps, I don’t know why you insist on putting chocolate in curry…”  
  
_“‘Gramps’? Young lady, I’ll have you know, I’m old enough to be your father_ **_at most_ ** _-”_  
  
“Tae?”  
  
Tae ended the call and deftly pocketed her phone. She turned, smiling warmly.  
  
“Hey, honeybee,” she said, smirking. “Nice underwear.”  
  
Sadayo looked down and abruptly remembered she was wearing cutesy, cartoon kittens. She huffed.  
  
“Sh-Shut up! I didn’t- I couldn’t find any-”  
  
“I know, I know,” Tae said gently. She nodded to the table. “Sit down.”  
  
Sadayo took a seat at the dining table. She saw the stack of papers she’d left there, not even a quarter finished, and pawed at her face.  
  
“Oh my _god_ ,” Sadayo despaired. “I didn’t do _anything_ today!”  
  
She groaned and slumped forward onto the table, burying her face in her arms. A moment later, she heard a thunk of ceramic on wood, and caught the rich scent of curry spices in the air. She felt the warmth of Tae beside her.  
  
“You survived,” Tae murmured, squeezing Sadayo’s shoulder. “That’s not nothing.”  
  
Sadayo lifted her head, meeting Tae’s eyes. She shuddered, her eyes growing wet.  
  
“Tae…” Sadayo choked back a sob. “...I can’t do this.”  
  
“Yes, you can,” Tae urged, brushing her knuckles against Sadayo’s cheek. “Listen, you still have time. First, have something to eat. Then, you break out your favorite pen-”  
  
“Not that!” Sadayo hissed. She gestured vaguely with her hand. “...This. I… I can’t do it. I can’t.”  
  
Tae blew out a sigh, pulling her fingers from Sadayo’s cheek. “...Take your meds.”  
  
Sadayo sighed, quietly grateful to focus on something solid. “Tae, not this again.”  
  
“Listen,” Tae said, retrieving her pill planner and a glass of water, “if you’ve got a kid in your class who wears glasses, would you make him take a test without them? No. Why? Because he needs them to see. They’re not an unfair advantage, they don’t somehow make him smarter than any of the other kids. The lenses in his eyes don’t cut it on their own. That’s okay. So, he uses the lenses he bought from a store. And that’s okay, too.”  
  
Sadayo took the glass and stared down at the pills in her hand, sighing. Tae reached out and squeezed her shoulder.  
  
“Put on your glasses,” she said gently. “You’ve got work to do.”  
  
Sadayo glanced at the stack of papers beside her. She sighed, and took her pills.  
  
“What are you going to do?” Sadayo asked.  
  
“I am going to head to the laundromat,” Tae said, rising from the table and stepping into Sadayo’s room, “because you are out of clean clothes.”  
  
Sadayo blinked. She got up and followed Tae into her room, to find her scooping clothes off the floor and into a hamper. She reached down and picked her phone off the floor. Her last text- _I need you_ \- blinked at her, unsent.  
  
“Tae,” Sadayo began. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for this, I really am, but… you came back for me. You cooked for me. Now, you’re about to go do my laundry. You’re… you’re so good to me. _Why_ …?”  
  
“Do I need a reason?” Tae shrugged, tossing clothes into the hamper. “I’m a doctor, honeybee. And I’m your friend. It’s what I do.”  
  
Tae turned, holding the hamper against her hip. “Alright, once you’ve eaten, try to get cracking on those tests. Grades need to be submitted by midnight, and lesson plans are also due at midnight, so don’t forget. I’ll try to be back by then, so you’ve got something to wear to work tomorrow. Save some curry for me, yeah? I like mine better cold, anyway.”  
  
Sadayo didn’t know what it was that made her stop Tae at the door.  
  
“Tae!” she called out.  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“Thank you,” Sadayo said. “I’ll… I’ll pay you back for this. Somehow.”  
  
Tae smiled. “Don’t worry about that now. You’ve got papers to grade.”  
  
“What if I need to see the doctor?” Sadayo asked.  
  
“I’m _not_ that kind of doctor,” Tae rolled her eyes. “But hey. Make an appointment, if you like.”  
  
Tae turned towards the door. Sadayo took a deep breath.  
  
“What about seven, tomorrow night?” she blurted out. “At Cafe Leblanc?”  
  
Tae’s breath caught in her throat. She turned, meeting Sadayo’s eyes for just a moment.  
  
“Curry, two nights in a row?” She teased, but she couldn’t quite hide the warmth in her cheeks. “...Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”  
  
They exchanged wordless smiles, before Tae pulled the door shut behind her. Sadayo wandered back to the dining table in a daze. She took a bite of curry, smiling around her spoon as the rich aroma joined the warmth blooming through her chest. She held up her favorite purple pen, glancing between the clock on the wall and the stack of papers beside her. Compared to what she had done already, it didn’t seem that big at all.  
  
Sadayo had a long night ahead of her, but she was smiling, nonetheless.  
  
It’s true, what they told her. Love won’t cure your depression.  
  
But it sure goes a long way.  
  
~*~

**Author's Note:**

> _You can't get what you want, but you can get me_   
>  _So let's set out to sea_   
>  _'Cuz you are my medicine_   
>  _When you're close to me._
> 
>  
> 
> \- Gorillaz, "On Melancholy Hill"


End file.
